E Split Corp T.ENS.PR.A

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[Obscure1]

I'm not much of a drinker, but at $20 for a case of beer, maybe I should start training. 

I filled up at Costco yesterday for $129.9 in Barrie.  I'm pretty sure that the gas in Barrie is processed in Sarnia which is pretty messed up.  

In answer to your question about the possible cause(s) for why the ENS share price remains depressed.  For starters, both of the factors that you mentioned (tax-loss selling and Raise overhang) may be playing a roll.  However, I think there is a bigger picture in play. 

The ENB share price fell off a cliff on Sept 6th when the company announced its intention to buy $19 billion worth of gas distribution assets from Dominion.  ENS "lemminged" its way off the cliff in sympathy. 

On Sept 5th (pre-announcement for ENB), the ENB share price closed at $48.16 when the ENS share price closed at $13.75. 

Today, the ENB share price sits at $47.82 and the ENS price is at $11.99 which means that ENB has almost fully recovered ( down $0.34 or 0.7%) while ENS is still in the doldrumss (down $1.76 or 12.8%). That percentage changes represent a huge discrepancy between the two stox. 

Wheneven something doesn't make sense, I always ask myself WHY?

ENB has always done a great job of communicating with shareholders.  The company has clearly explained why they entered into the acquisition and what the impact will be on their cash flow and earnings in both the short term (a non-event) and the long term (which will be accretive and provide solid growth opportunities)  Number crunchers like myself eat that stuff up and once we have processed the information, respond accordingly.  

ENS on the other hand exists in a bubble.  Nobody follows ENS and never will.  Middlefield doesn't report anything other than regulatory mandates and they don't even know who owns their shares.    Middlefield and the other Split fun managers simply overpay investment bankers with excessive commissions to saddle their Retail customers with over-inflated share prices trading at massive premiums to the NAV. 

ENS shareholders in general are very passive investors.  By that I mean that as long as the monthly divi's roll in, they don't pay attention unless there is a big price drop that causes fear.  ENS investor indifference is why premiums to the NAV get so high and why Middlefield keeps doing Raise after Raise.  

Ok, ok, I will get to the bottom line of why I think the ENS share price seems stuck: 

1) Nobody is informing ENS shareholders about the opportunity at hand (other than me but nobody cares what I think).  
2) Middlefield took advantage of ENS shareholders being asleep at the wheel following the ENB ex-divi date on Nov 14th.  ENS shareholders were hanging on for the Nov divi and as soon as the calender changed to December, Middlefield pounced on the excessive Premium to the NAV . 

I personally got caught off guard this time as Middlefield "changed the rules" with respect to the $10 value they had previously assigned to the Prefs. That won't happen again.  In the meantime, I continue to load up.

[Experienced]

You answered your own question...it's all about the premium to NAV....when the price is bid up almost 20% more than something is worth...expect an adjustment 

[Obscure1]

Experienced: I don't agree with your evaluation of "worth" in this case.  If I'm faced with buying ENS or ENB where the NAV of ENS is equal to the ENS share price, I would load up on ENS unless I thought the ENB share price was about to take a hit.  ENS' yield is about 65% higher than ENB, about 1/3 of ENS's dividend is tax deferred, ENS pays out monthly

[Experienced]

Perhaps I was attracted to LCS because it was trading at a discount to NAV which IMO provides some downside protection.  Even there I bought based on expectations of capital gains as opposed to buying for the yield and this worked out quite well. In the case of ENS, the premium to NAV has dropped considerably recently and in that sense has become more attractive to me.  When the

[Puma1back]

the Insurers have also risen inline with the markets since the October lows which doesn't make sense to me as they will be most hit by lower interest rates. I would expect to see some ugly paper losses in the group when they have to revalue the discounted liabilities using significantly lower interest rates.  

[Experienced]

Puma...yes I agree - good analysis. I completed my last roundtrip on LCS around 6.25 after reloading at $5.  It has gone higher since then but oh well. Frankly, I don't see doing another one for LCS quite a while and have moved on to other targets.

[Puma1back]

Well i for one really enjoy your posts Obscure1 - great mixture of the theoretical and practical